Ty into UAE racing to benefit long-term interests
AWARENESS, WHILE CHARTING DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OF DUBAI RACING
the American awareness of participation for this year’s World Cup and we hope to have a good group of horses from North America and elsewhere. The UAE now has a nice little
■ circuit in place with the five racecourses. Is there further scope for expansion?
There is always room to think about future expansions. But probably what’s most important is to concentrate on the existing ones that we have, and
to improve them to make it a great and efficient circuit. And that’s what we’re doing. There have been calls from
■ certain trainers for a longer domestic programme. Is that something to consider?
You can always expand racing to beginnings and ends, or increase days and fixtures, but you have to be conscious of what kind of horses, and what kind of racing you want, and I think that is important. I think the fixture that we have at the moment carries us to a good quality programme at the end of the season, and we have a good mixture of Arabian racing and thoroughbred racing. We don’t want too many race days; we’d be short in certain areas and I think the programmes would start to change and I’m not sure we want to go in that direction. When you talk about the core ingredients that make a racecourse successful do you believe that Meydan ticks all the right boxes? I think we certainly work on ticking those boxes, what is important is to have good facilities, a good team and a right approach of what you want to present at your facility. And you have the amenities to offer the guests and also you need to make sure that you have main
ingredient, which is the horse. Do you still remember your first day here, and did you ever imagine at that time that Dubai could accomplish what it has today. And of course a lot of that credit goes to you. My first day at work was 9/11/2005, I’ll never forget that day. But I won’t take the credit, the credit goes to His Highness Shaikh Mohammad [Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai] and the country, the Board of Directors, and all the team that work here at Dubai Racing Club and Emirates Racing Authority and Meydan.
I knew Dubai has always had the ability. From the day when I came here for the first World Cup in 1996 I could see that they had the potential to achieve whatever they wanted, if they put their mind to it. With the vision of Shaikh Mohammad and the whole team, anything can be accomplished, if you all work together. How does it feel like to be at the helm of affairs at such a fabulous racecourse? It’s a pride that you have at any racing jurisdiction that you’re in, or any racetrack or company that you’re working for. So I do have a pride where I work and I take that pride to make my work ethic better with the support that I get from my management, my team and board of directors. That’s what drives success, you’ve got to have a little pride in what you do. Can racing benefit from a superstar, like other sports? Absolutely! Every sport and every industry around the world relies on the superstars to get their exposure and increase awareness. At the end of the day it’s actually the superstar that gets them on to the front pages and no doubt horse racing depends on the superstar. But it doesn’t have to be at your own facility as it is the sport that really benefit from it and that’s the key. How can you attract more people to come racing, what’s in it for them? For us it’s important to create awareness in several ways — the beauty of the animal, the competition of the individual horses, trainers and jockeys. It’s also an opportunity to enjoy a day at a beautiful facility and experience the best action and entertainment that we can offer.
There are many entertainment levels that are out their in the UAE, especially in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, so we have to be competitive, there’s no doubt about that. But we’re a unique competition and we’ve just got to keep people aware of the enjoyment of a night of racing in the UAE.
Every sport and every industry around the world relies on the superstars. At the end of the day it’s actually the superstar that gets them on to the front pages and no doubt horse racing depends on the superstar.”